Kaya – My Orange Memories

Half-boiled eggs, kaya toast and coffee has long been, and still is, a favorite breakfast with us Singaporeans.  It’s a polyglot breakfast if ever there was one; but that’s understandable given that we live in a polyglot nation fed by a dozen other food streams from our colonial past and neighboring countries. Breakfast -- like all our meals -- has become a heady culinary free-for-all… But hey, who’s complaining?

The story goes that Ya Kun, one of our earliest purveyors of bread toast with kaya, started with a single stall in the financial district decades ago. With the energy and ambition of the young, Ya Kun’s second generation of owners brought the juggernaut that is modern marketing into the game; and made half-boiled eggs and kaya toast stylish and with-it – whatever the time of day. Inevitably a slew of other brands and businesses jumped on the bandwagon: even the Singapore Tourism Board, which elevated this breakfast combo to one of the ‘must eats’ for visitors. And there, kaya stands today.

Kaya is made from a few basic ingredients: sugar, eggs, coconut milk and pandan leaves. It is believed that kaya originated from the Peranakans. Pandan is a tropical plant that grows in abundance in South-east Asia. Its long blade-like leaves cannot be eaten, but emit a wonderful fragrance when bruised or used in cooking. Blend the leaves and the resulting juice also makes a pretty green natural coloring for food.

I remember vividly my first sight, and taste, of kaya. It was a coffee shop. The kaya sat, in its bright reddish orange splendor, in a round tin can. The coffee shop assistant would spread a thick layer of margarine on the slice of bread, and then slather on the kaya. The flavor to a ten-year-old was heavenly, drawn as we instinctively were, to sugar and carbo.

Since then, my vision of kaya has always been orange – the color imprinted indelibly on me by those childhood encounters – even though the green ‘version’ is the more commonplace these days. The green in this, more recent, kaya is the result of the pandan juice added during cooking.

There is another green, custard-like version, known as Serikaya, that is eaten on its own, with bread, or as a component of Malay and Peranakan dessert cakes. The Hakkas too, have a kaya version of their own; this particular kaya has orange sugar or palm sugar (Gula Melaka) in it, giving it a taste that’s richer and mellower.

So now, the tastes and orange memories come flooding back as I cook the following recipe…

Kaya

Eggs                             15, about 50 g each

Orange sugar              400 g

Fresh coconut milk     500 g

Pandan leaves             10, tied into a knot

Method:

1. Mix all ingredients in a heavy-base pot, and simmer.
2. Stir continually until the mixture thickens. Keep the temperature low and don’t overcook it or the egg will curdle. If it does curdle, simply blend the mixture with an electric mixer. Remove pandan leaves.
3. Cool and store in a bottle.

Note:   There is another, easier way to cook kaya. Pour all ingredients into a slow pot and turn it to HIGH. Stir the mixture occasionally until the mixture thickens. If you prefer Pandan Kaya, substitute the orange sugar with castor sugar. Then blend pandan leaves and extract 50 g of juice and add it into the batter. The version I’ve given is less sweet than usual, if you prefer it sweeter, simply increase the sugar to your taste.

Tong Heng - A Sweet Success Story

Success didn’t strike overnight, far from it. This one took patience, grit, and cool business sense.

Tong Heng had its beginnings on Keppel Road in the 1920s, where its founder was one among many who peddled drinks, snacks, and biscuits to shipyard and other blue-collar workers. By 1932 he had saved enough to open a restaurant on Smith Street in Chinatown, selling dim sum. Dim sum was popular food, but competition was again rough; so he streamlined his “business direction” and focused on the bestsellers. Thus began the Tong Heng egg tart’s road to food stardom.

The business today is into its third generation; headed by three sisters, Constance, Rebecca, and Cynthia Fong. And, like many family businesses, it’s managed in a decidedly non-corporate style. Decisions are made around the family table; and since early recipes were not properly documented, the sisters had to resort to research, and rounds of test cooking, to improve, and, finally perfect, the family recipes.

But they almost didn’t get to do it: their father didn’t want them involved in the business initially. But then, community work bogged him down, and an accident he suffered affected his running of the business.

The sisters eventually took over, and their sheer hard work shows in the many popular products sold over Tong Heng counters. Foods sold in their father’s day today appear in new reinventions; and the sisters created and launched the brand’s highly successful range of moon cakes in the late 1970s. They proudly point out that their colored snow-skin moon cakes were the first of their kind in Singapore, and featured four flavors: durian (yellow-skinned), strawberry (pink), vanilla (white), and pandan (green).

Today, with a staff of more than ten in the kitchen, and two retail outlets, the company needs to produce thousands of their signature egg and coconut tarts and other snacks, each day. Like the proud owners that they are, the three women boast of their in-house-made ingredients, such as the red bean and lotus paste fillings, the kayas, and dough.

Tong Heng is today an instantly recognizable name; and, famed egg tart aside, its other bestsellers include the coconut tart, char siew puff, and vegetarian coin-biscuit.  They have even introduced Hong Kong-style desserts at their shops.

Tong Heng

285 South Bridge Road

Singapore 058833

Tel:   6223 3649, 6223 0398

The Mother of All Kayas

I guess it’s just me…but I’ve always thought “kaya” was very aptly named. Because, whatever the actual origins, the word “kaya” is Malay for “rich”. And a good kaya is richness incarnate -- in texture, aroma, taste, and sheer satisfaction. Kaya transforms a slice of toast into an event.

The popularity of kaya and toast belies the fact that it is nothing new; in fact it’s so old hat to Singaporeans, it’s like, our national snack. You see it eaten morning, noon and night everywhere, and a small coffee shop has spun a mega-franchise on the back of this humble repast.

And humble its beginnings were. I remember the mini charcoal grill tucked into the corner of every old neighborhood coffee shop. It heated the copper tea/coffee container with the long needle spout, and I always associated kaya with this grill as the bread was invariably toasted on it.

I remember the white slice of bread laid on the carbon-encrusted wire, slowly darkening to golden brown over the charcoal. When nicely crisp, the bread, with parallel stripes burnt into it, would be spread with margarine or tiled with thick slices of “Cold Storage” butter, and then slathered with kaya (or sugar if preferred). Coffee or tea would complete it. Cheap. Simple. Utterly old school.

Kaya is unique to Singapore and Malaysia, I think, and I recall seeing two principal kinds in those days. The orange-colored kaya tasted cheap and was the most common variety used by coffee shops, bakery shops, bicycle hawkers, and the like. The other light green variety was usually homemade and lightly flavoured with pandan.

However, the most rare form of kaya was Serikaya. Today, Serikaya is nearly impossible to find, and most Singaporeans have never heard of it. Even in the early days, only well-to-do Peranakan households prepared Serikaya, and usually for their own consumption. Serikaya is custard made of eggs, coconut milk, and sugar, with pandan leaves added for a hint of fragrance. It was laborious to prepare and didn’t have a long shelf life, especially in an age where refrigerators were scarce.

I, too, was fairly late coming to Serikaya, and encountered it in my teens via a classmate, a true blue Peranakan. She lived in a sprawling bungalow in Pasir Panjang. We would go, my other classmates and I, to her house after school for cakes and pastry prepared by her domestic help. Serikaya would be the highlight, cut in thick slices and sandwiched in freshly toasted bread. The custard would be soft and rich with the flavor of coconut, and laced with the scent of pandan. It was out of this world.

Obtaining the recipe required epic effort. As with most cooks of that time, the “amah” (domestic help) claimed to have no recipe, and cooked by memory and estimation. On top of that, the Peranakan tradition of jealously guarding their “secrets” was legendary. I spent months cajoling her before she finally “broke”. I was allowed into the kitchen to watch. I had to make quick mental notes, and later, through trial and error, was finally able to replicate the taste and consistency. Here then is the elusive Serikaya.

Serikaya

Duck eggs                            10, or 12 chicken eggs

Sugar                                     450 g

Fresh thick coconut milk    250 ml (from one coconut)

Salt                                         ½ tsp

Pandan leaves                     10, score the leaves before tying a knot

Method:

1.     Stir egg and sugar gently using a whisk, without causing too much frothing, until the sugar dissolves.

2.     Add coconut milk and pandan leaves; stir well.

3.     Pass the mixture through a fine muslin cloth into a heavy pot.

4.     Set over low heat, cook and stir until the mixture has thickened slightly.

5.     Pour into a baking tin, and place the pandan leaves on top. Cover with an aluminium foil. Pierce the aluminium foil with a few holes.

6.     Steam for 1½ hours.

7.     Remove the tin and let it cool.

8.     Serikaya must be kept in a fridge and is best eaten within a week.